Prompt.
Typical school day of an exchange student.
In last few years going for an exchange year to other country has become really popular. Every year lots and lots of teens from different countries are going abroad to learn about an exchange country's culture, people, and lifestyle, and by the time goes, become one of them. What a coincidence that I am one of them myself, and I can tell about my typical school day back in Latvia. Three things you will find interesting would be about school by itslef, my school day and afterschool activities.
Even despites the fact that most of the americans would think that to study in Europe is much harder than in Usa, I think that in some ways it is much more harder and more depressive in Usa. For example the length of the class in Latvia is 40 minutes and between each class we have long breaks where we can just chill, meet our friends and talk about things, there is no rush and worries about beeing late for the class. I find it really cool ! Of course, everything is not as nice, as it sounded before, because of our class length, we have from 6-8 classes a day and you can not choose any of subjects that you would like to take. You just have to study everything that government has required in the school program, which would be from 10 subjects in lower grades, til 16 subjects in higher grades. There is a huge variety of them, but you would never find a subjects like marketing or oceanography. Those would probably be a subjects in university. The only subjects that would be optional are foreign languages, although, english is required for everybody. But at the start of a 6th grade you can choose between russian or german, and I beeing a fool, chose german. In Latvia, when you start to go to school, people are divided in a,b,c classes, which usually is about 30 people in the class and you go together with them to all the subjects. It is not like in Usa, that in every class you can have different people. I could compare a lot of different and interesting things, but I think the best thing here, in Usa, that I like much better, is that here is almost no homework. In European countries the teachers are just a homework machines, thay would give you homework in every single subject almost every day, of course it doesn't mean that you definitely have to do that, because in most of case they won't grade it anyway, but from the other side, maybe it is because we don't do such a lot of classwork.
My typical school day is pretty interesting. Everything starts at about 7.45 in the morning when I slowly get out of bed, dress up, eat breakfast and run to the school, which is like 5 minutes away from my house. I go to the neighborhood school, so most of the people live around or realy close to it. School starts at 8.30. Got to admit that it is much easier to concentrate and stay awake if the school starts later than here. There is always a possibility that 1st class is cancelled because the teacher is not in school, or I just do not feel like going to 1st class so I just get up for 2nd. But there will never be such a thing as a substitute. When the school starts,it is pretty boring, but at least we have the "magic" brakes which exceeds from 10-25 minutes, and allows us to rest a little bit, go outside in the yard to chill by the fountain if it is warm enough, sit on the couches in the hall, go to one of 4 school cafeterias, or even just go home for a meal. But usually most of the people in my school uses the brakes to go outside for a cigarette. I would possibly use it to go to school gym and throw a basketball around a little bit, or just to chat with the girls. I think for an exchange student in my old school, it would be a paradise, because we got lots of beautiful girls.
After tiring school day which mostly ends at about 10am-3pm (differs from the amount of classes, or just how long do you feel like staying in the school), I'm heading back home to take a little nap and the later on go to the practice, which is Not at the school. In Europe there is basically no school sports. Everything is on the club teams. If you would tell somebody in Latvian school, that you want to participate in, for example, school basketball team, locals would just start to laugh, because school sports is like the nerdiest thing to do. Practice would end at like 6-8pm, and after that I am heading back home, having a dinner, maybe go outside to a bar with some friends. After that to bed, and basically every day, the same. The rutine kills us all around the world, not only in the US.
I think the typical day in no matter which european school, maybe would be a little bit more interesting than in Usa, because of the freedom and trust from teachers and people around us. In Usa you have to answer for everything much more often - attend all classes, or the school will just call your parents, walk inside the class like minute later and that is already tardiness, basically in a few words I would say, it is more chill and not so depressing in Europe. And from my experience, these are 2 most important things to make an easy, new beginning in a new and different society.
Typical school day of an exchange student.
In last few years going for an exchange year to other country has become really popular. Every year lots and lots of teens from different countries are going abroad to learn about an exchange country's culture, people, and lifestyle, and by the time goes, become one of them. What a coincidence that I am one of them myself, and I can tell about my typical school day back in Latvia. Three things you will find interesting would be about school by itslef, my school day and afterschool activities.
Even despites the fact that most of the americans would think that to study in Europe is much harder than in Usa, I think that in some ways it is much more harder and more depressive in Usa. For example the length of the class in Latvia is 40 minutes and between each class we have long breaks where we can just chill, meet our friends and talk about things, there is no rush and worries about beeing late for the class. I find it really cool ! Of course, everything is not as nice, as it sounded before, because of our class length, we have from 6-8 classes a day and you can not choose any of subjects that you would like to take. You just have to study everything that government has required in the school program, which would be from 10 subjects in lower grades, til 16 subjects in higher grades. There is a huge variety of them, but you would never find a subjects like marketing or oceanography. Those would probably be a subjects in university. The only subjects that would be optional are foreign languages, although, english is required for everybody. But at the start of a 6th grade you can choose between russian or german, and I beeing a fool, chose german. In Latvia, when you start to go to school, people are divided in a,b,c classes, which usually is about 30 people in the class and you go together with them to all the subjects. It is not like in Usa, that in every class you can have different people. I could compare a lot of different and interesting things, but I think the best thing here, in Usa, that I like much better, is that here is almost no homework. In European countries the teachers are just a homework machines, thay would give you homework in every single subject almost every day, of course it doesn't mean that you definitely have to do that, because in most of case they won't grade it anyway, but from the other side, maybe it is because we don't do such a lot of classwork.
My typical school day is pretty interesting. Everything starts at about 7.45 in the morning when I slowly get out of bed, dress up, eat breakfast and run to the school, which is like 5 minutes away from my house. I go to the neighborhood school, so most of the people live around or realy close to it. School starts at 8.30. Got to admit that it is much easier to concentrate and stay awake if the school starts later than here. There is always a possibility that 1st class is cancelled because the teacher is not in school, or I just do not feel like going to 1st class so I just get up for 2nd. But there will never be such a thing as a substitute. When the school starts,it is pretty boring, but at least we have the "magic" brakes which exceeds from 10-25 minutes, and allows us to rest a little bit, go outside in the yard to chill by the fountain if it is warm enough, sit on the couches in the hall, go to one of 4 school cafeterias, or even just go home for a meal. But usually most of the people in my school uses the brakes to go outside for a cigarette. I would possibly use it to go to school gym and throw a basketball around a little bit, or just to chat with the girls. I think for an exchange student in my old school, it would be a paradise, because we got lots of beautiful girls.
After tiring school day which mostly ends at about 10am-3pm (differs from the amount of classes, or just how long do you feel like staying in the school), I'm heading back home to take a little nap and the later on go to the practice, which is Not at the school. In Europe there is basically no school sports. Everything is on the club teams. If you would tell somebody in Latvian school, that you want to participate in, for example, school basketball team, locals would just start to laugh, because school sports is like the nerdiest thing to do. Practice would end at like 6-8pm, and after that I am heading back home, having a dinner, maybe go outside to a bar with some friends. After that to bed, and basically every day, the same. The rutine kills us all around the world, not only in the US.
I think the typical day in no matter which european school, maybe would be a little bit more interesting than in Usa, because of the freedom and trust from teachers and people around us. In Usa you have to answer for everything much more often - attend all classes, or the school will just call your parents, walk inside the class like minute later and that is already tardiness, basically in a few words I would say, it is more chill and not so depressing in Europe. And from my experience, these are 2 most important things to make an easy, new beginning in a new and different society.